Castroville 2.0

Do you ever let your mind wander and imagine what we will talk about when we are no longer in the midst of a global pandemic? Perhaps there will be a lot of awkward silence, small talk, asking about the weather.  Then after a pause, we’ll say, “remember when we used to be able to wear masks? That was the best!” Things are so screwy that I don’t even remember what it was like to write an annual holiday letter.  I feel like we skipped writing one last year.  Then again, I also feel like we skipped last year altogether. So bear with us as we try to re-start the forge.  Thanks to the vaccine (here we go again, talking about the pandemic), we were able to get back to #CastroTravels!  That, of course, helped us keep our sanity. Although, judging by our Holiday Card, I guess there wasn’t much sanity left to salvage.  Meanwhile, I'm sure that we annoyed all of your social media feeds, so for those of you who muted us, or are too old/cool for social media, here’s a quick recap.  A few trips

Hello and Happy Holidays! As we said in  the postcard, 2019 was a tough year.  If I were to sugar coat it, I’d say it was the “Bud Light Lime” of years:  It wasn’t the best.  In mid-January, Jed’s mom was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer. She spent the next 4 months in Charlottesville, and passed away on May 4th.   Now, I know that Holiday letters are supposed to be like Christian Radio:  positive, uplifting and encouraging. But it wouldn’t be a #castrochristmasletter if it were normal. The first part of 2019 was undoubtedly some of the most difficult months of our married lives.  But in the last few months of my mom's life, we did get to spend a lot of time with her. We did some talking, some cooking, and even a little traveling with her. We took her to see the Cherry Blossoms in the Nation's capital, something she’d always wanted to do; and also got a chance to take one more family vacation as a family (Thanks, Legeroses). Mom wou

One of our favorite Pix of 2018 And just like that… 2018 is done.  I feel like it was just last month that you got our last card, rolled your eyes at the picture, glanced at the back and thought “there’s no way I’m going to that website to read that annoying letter." And yet, here we are again… with another annoying letter. So, as we stand on the precipice of 2019, we ask what hath 2018 wrought? Well, we did some pretty cool stuff.  However, as we wrote this letter, we realized that listing out all the things we had a chance to do, seemed really shamefully self-serving.  So we thought… what did we learn from our adventures with friends? Here are 3 big things we learned from 3 of our adventures. Halong Bay - The Inspirationals Kristen & Lou Doug & Pamela Our big trip this summer was to Vietnam.  This picture cannot begin to capture the majesty of Halong Bay.  (Eric would say it’s because I’m not as good a photographer as he is). On our trip w

Greetings of the Season! I wonder sometimes how long it takes other people to write these annual letters.   Do I take an extraordinarily short amount of time or an excruciatingly long  time? Maybe I’ll start a timer and see. I’m 97% sure of this:  it will take longer for me to write it than it will for you to read it. Timer:  3 Seconds The timer should stop now b/c I just switched to GChat with Tim. Timer: 23 Minutes 20 Seconds 2017 was a great year for the VA Castros and for #castrotravels. But let's start off with some good news for those of you who may have actually read one of  these letters in the past few years! Here it is: You will NEVER have to read another letter with Jed complaining about doing homework for grad school. I FINISHED!! And as the saying goes TGTO. That's really not a saying as much as it's an acronym. But it's really not that either, it's more like 4 capital letters with no spaces. Anyway, my response to grad